Mary Jane Crullers A couple of weeks ago when September rolled into October ( when I was not paying attention) I was reading an article in Yankee magazine about the sights and sounds of autumn. One recipe that caught my eye was one for Apple Cider Donuts. Instantly I was taken back to my grandmother's kitchen when she pulled out her ingredients for her Mary Jane Crullers. When you are little and your Nana teaches you the wonders of baking from recipes that were in the family recipe tin since the 1920's, you are given such gifts out of love and memories. And so Mary Jane Crullers is one of those. The recipe that I have dates back to June 18, 1936. I copied this recipe in 1973 the autumn before I married in June 1974.(more to come on that. With all the cooking shows, internet cookbooks,and instant gathering of information, I decided to check out crullers online. I wanted to see if it "was the same" as I knew them to be. The ingredients were basic enough...butter, flour, sugar , eggs, milk baking powder and fat for frying. Even the Food Network's Alton Brown has his authority on them-and truly minus my grandmother's homemade instructions and gut instinct-of which was passed down to me and now down to my sons. Mary Jane Crullers brings me back to standing on a wooden rail chair, a dented metal mixing bowl, an old Kitchen Aid mixer, her flour sifter with the red wooden handle ( I have it on my shelf here in the kitchen), brown paper bags cut wide open spotted with dark oil puddles, and lastly a beloved wooden spoon.Nana's recipe cards were printed with "From the Kitchen of Cora Godbout" at the top. She listed her ingredients on the left side and always used the word "Procedure" on the right side. Simple uncomplicated steps that got the job done. No designer this or that, no shiny stainless steal must haves, no high tech getting in the way. Just a wooden spoon, a metal bowl and brown paper bags. And so on the cold, wet dismal rainy day, Mary Jane Crullers live on. From 1936-to 2010, and all the autumns in between, the smell of cinnamon and and fried twisted dough draining on brown paper is never lost, never gone. On the back of Cora's recipe card my handwriting spoke..."made for the first time as a newly married September 28, 1974 in Augusta, Georgia." An excerpt from my poem "Dusted by Time" brings back my cooking heart and my Nana's loving guidance. Food Network and Alton Brown cannot and should not capture such voices and "procedures" treasured for always in an old tin box of memories: "Made of black tin now dented, battered and scarred, A box of memories calls out to me I have missed them, I have missed them all." There is a freeze warning out for tonight; the geraniums must come in. They will come in to a mother teaching her oldest son a great-grandmother's legacy. One rule will be that no computer or Food Network will be within range of a wooden spoon, a metal bowl, the flour sifter and of course the brown paper bags for draining the fat.